Cnut’s Letter to the English People

King Cnut greets in friendship his archbishops and his diocesan bishops, and Earl Thorkel and all his earls, and all his people, whether men of a twelve hundred wergild or a two hundred, ecclesiastic lay, in England.

I inform you that I will be a gracious lord and faithful observer of God’s rights and just secular law. I have borne in mind the letters and messages which Archbishop Lifing (Elfstan) brought me from Rome from the pope, that I should everywhere exalt God’s praise and suppress wrong and establish full security, by that power which God to give me. Since I did not spare my money, as long as hostility was threatening you, I, with God’s help, have put an end to it. Then I was informed that greater danger was approaching us than closer than we liked, and then I went with the men who accompanied me to Denmark, from where the greatest abuse has come to you, and with God’s help I have taken measures so that from now on no such hostility can reach you from there as long as you rightly support me and my life lasts.

Now I thank God Almighty for his help and his mercy, that I have settled the great dangers which were approaching us and we no longer need to fear danger from there; but we may consider on full help and deliverance, if we need it. It is my will that we humbly thank Almighty God for the mercy that he has shown for our benefit. 

Now I pray my archbishops and all my diocesan bishops will all be zealous about God’s dues, each in the district entrusted to him. I also charge all my ealdormen that they help the bishops in furthering God’s rights and my royal dignity for the benefit of all the people. If anyone, ecclesiastic or laymen, Dane or Englishman, presumes to defy the law of God, my royal authority, or the secular law, and he will not make amends and cease according to the administration of my bishops, I then pray, and command, Earl Thorkel, if he is able, to cause the offenders to do right. If he cannot, then it is my will that, with my power of both of us, he will destroy him in the land or drive him out of the land, whether he is of high or low rank. I also charge all of my reeves, on pain of losing my frienship and all that they possess, including their lives, that the maintain my people justly everywhere, and give just judgements with the witness of the bishops of the dioceses, and practice such mercy therein as seems just to the bishops of the diocese and can be supported. And if anyone gives asylum to a thief or interferes on his behalf, to me, he is liable to the same punishment as the thief, unless he can clear himself of liability to me with the full process of exculpation.  

It is my will that all the nation, ecclesiastical and lay, will faithfully observe Edgar’s laws, which all men have chosen and sown to at Oxford. For all the bishops say that breaking oaths and pledges is to be deeply atoned for with God. And also they further teach us that we must, with all our strength and all our might, earnestly seek, love, and honor the eternal merciful God, and shun all evil, namely homocides, murderers, liars, wizards, sorceresses, adulterers, and incestuous acts. We also command, in the name of Almighty God and all his saints, that no man is be so presumptuous as to take a wife who is a woman consecrated to a life of chastity or a nun. If anyone has done this, he is to be an outlaw before God and excommunicated from all Christendom, and will forfeit all he owns to the king, unless he quickly ceases and atones to God. 

Moreover, we encourage that the Sunday festival be observed and honored will all one’s might from Saturday noon until dawn on Monday, and that no one is presumptuous to practice any trade or attend any meeting on that holy day. All men, poor and rich, are to go to their church and make petitions for their sins, and observe fervently every appointed fast, and readily honor the saints whose feasts the priests will encourage on us so that we may altogether, through the mercy of the eternal God and the intercession of his saints, can and may come to the joy of the heavenly kingdom  and dwell with him who reigns and lives forever without end. Amen.